Onyx BOOX Nova3 Color, the first color ereader supports writing | Hacker News Reader

Onyx BOOX Nova3 Color, the first color ereader supports writing

boox.com

35 pointsonebookaday26 comments

Isn't this the company that refuses to comply with the terms of the GPL because people are only requesting source code due to "anti-china sentiment"? Not going to buy from people who are going to flagrantly violate the licenses of the software they run on their products, even if the hardware is nice.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_usin...

Yes, yes it is. Earlier discussions on HN here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23735962

For whatever it's worth, the user that posted this link (onebookaday) appears to be a dedicated account for posting links to Boox products; active 7 months, 4 submissions, 5 comments, all surrounding the release and promotion of Boox products. I don't think it's expressly against HN guidelines ("Who's hiring" posts obviously have corporate accounts post), but it does seem a little disingenuous for the account not to disclose that information in either their comments or the profile's "About" information.

I own a Boox Note. Onyx shamelessly uses shill accounts on reddit and twitter to advertise their products. And yes, they are GPL violators.

My Boox isn't all terrible, but I would strongly suggest people check out Supernote or Remarkable instead. Both have their issues, but don't buy a Boox.

I own a first-gen reMarkable, and I really only have two complaints about it. Since the onboard CPU is fairly slow, I wish you could do the conversion to its internal format on an external computer, rather than the only option being for the device to do it itself. The other is I wish I could privately host the cloud services because I use the device for work. I have to leave all of the automatic syncing disabled since it only goes through their cloud service.

Other than those two, it was a game changer for me. Haven't picked up regular pencil and paper since. I do all my notes, designs, doodles, etc. on it.

Genuinely curious. Is there an alternative (eink, uptodateish android, fastish cpu) you can get anywhere? That would be really nice to have.

Linfiny (a company created by Sony, E-INK and Wacom) seems very interesting. They will be releasing some new models this year, including color e-ink. These are the successors of the Sony Digital Papers, which I think are the best note taking devices. I bought mine in 2018 and use it almost every day. The addition of the Wacom layer will be great, because the original stylus was not so great (although it did the job).

[1] https://www.linfiny.co.jp/en

(edit: typo)

I seem to be in the minority, but I really prefer larger-sized eink tablets. This could be because I often use mine (remarkable) for reading arxiv papers, and they assume a standard A4 paper size. So for me, I'd take a larger tablet over a color tablet. I'd still love a color version, at least to be able to highlight things or mark things up in a different color.

Same here. I have a Remarkable 2 and also a Sony DPT-S1: they are amazing for reading a wide variety of content without messing around with zooming and panning.

I don't think you're in minority; unfortunately 6-inch devices became "standard", probably because of the Kindle, and 7.8 seem like "large", whereas in fact they're quite small and reading PDFs is still a pain - you either get minuscule text or use reflowing which makes a mess of scientific papers.

This is a very temping device. How does it compare to the remarkable2 in terms of syncing and connectivity?

The only thing holding me back from the RM2 is lack of OneNote. I wish MS would get on board.

I've been using a nova pro since its inception, the nova 3 is a lot faster than the Nova Pro I had, so I'm tempted to switch as well.

The Boox Note Air is probably closer to the RM2. Nova Pro was too slow for most android apps IMHO. The newer Boox devices are much more usable in that sense.

The glass screen is quite good, although I think the typing experience on RM2 is a bit better. I personally prefer Android, because of software accessibility, but if you want to hack around with your device and build things on your own RM is the way to go.

Also, as always with "small" Chinese companies they're not complying with the GPL.

I think in terms of syncing Onyx Boox is ahead of RM "(out of the box)"

OneNote is not funcional. You can quite easily set it up so that your notes sync as PDFs to the cloud (Dropbox/Google Drrive/One Drive) via a3rd party syncing app. I use that and it works great. My notes sync to my desktop and I can add/remove papers from my desktop as well.

Please read up on Kaleido before being tempted. It’s sufficiently darker than the monochrome eink to make reading in normal indoor lighting very hard. Also, the color resolution is, like, ugh. It is a very nieche thing. Now, the monochrome booxes do look tempting.

https://gpl-violations.org/

Wacom layer + latest E Ink Kaleido screen + Android 10

$420 available at https://shop.boox.com/products/nova3color

Will you buy it?

Only if the finely comply with GPL.

GPL non-compliance should bar import.

I personally don't find color to the feature I need for my ebook reader. I bought BOOX Nova 3 for books and (mainly) surfing, and found I liked the writing and use it for keep notes as well. The writing is better than iPad because the screen is not glass. I am not using screen protector so I don't know how long this screen will last. Overall, it is an upgrade from my kindle. I never wanted to see color once on it though. I would imagine iPad is a better device for pictures, mangas and videos because it is faster.

What's the battery life like on the Nova 3?

I am not a heavy user, I charge it maybe once/twice a week. I personally don't find battery life something you should worry about on these devices to be honest (unless you go to forests regularly). I do have a kindle, I guess if I am going on a trip, I will bring kindle. It is cheaper and waterproof.

The reason I bought Nova 3 is that there are so many things I want to read in browser, and also I have scribd subscription I thought I could use :) I only use it at home and in office.

Thank you, this is useful information. I'm very tempted to buy one. Saying that, it's not like I'm spoilt for choice in e-ink devices.

Wish Apple made one.

I tried the onyx max 2 as development device and was surprised I missed colored syntax highlighting so much.

The video on their website won't load for me, but I found this launch video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTbuDQp_ano

I'm not super sold on it, especially because the color DPI is only 100.

100dpi in color mode.. not the end of the world, but certainly going to be noticeable.

Still, 100dpi color display without batteries to keep it refreshed, OMG yes please.

if pragprog or nostarch press pdfs look good on it, I'm game to get one

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